Bruce R Reichenbach

Professor Emeritus

Since I retired in 2011 after teaching philosophy for 43 years at Augsburg, I have fulfilled my desire to write and to teach as a volunteer in educational institutions in other parts the world. For two years I taught philosophy at ABC University in Yekepa, Liberia, a mining town established by Lamco, a Swedish-American iron mining company. After its destruction during the Liberian civil war, the university was restarted to teach students, long deprived of educational opportunities, in theology, education, communications, and business. In a succeeding year I gave lectures and conducted a semester-long faculty development workshop at the University of Žilina in Slovakia. I spent the spring term of 2016 in Accra, Ghana, teaching at Good News Theological College and Seminary, established by the Mennonite and Lutheran churches to train leaders for the African Instituted or Indigenous Churches. The school educates a diversity of students through its day school and weekend college programs for working adults.

Teaching Philosophy

My passion for teaching and the rewards I receive come from the students I teach. I enjoy seeing students discover and learn, grow in their appreciation of what they read and study, mature in their critical thinking skills, and come to a greater understanding of themselves and the world around and beyond them. Philosophy provides the perfect context for these tasks when it asks students to discern the meaning, truth, justification, and significance of the ideas they encounter. Philosophy also prompts us to ask very personal questions about the meaning and significance of life and about our individual vocation, which is, in diverse ways, to serve others on behalf of God.

My role in teaching is to stimulate students to consider, question, and carefully develop their own viewpoints. In class and conversation I challenge students to think, not only about the positions they hold, but the reasoning they use to support their views. Through dialogue and with lots of support, students blossom into careful, critical, and creative thinkers, and I hope, into persons of faith. Since my objective in teaching is to help students become curious about the world and become independent learners, I take as my motto: “The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.”

Scholarship

See my publications listed below. I also serve on two editorial boards: Science, Religion, and Culture, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Philology.

Other Interests: Professors have a life outside the college. My interests extend beyond the classroom and writing to my family, doing volunteer teaching in other countries, engaging in sports such as racquetball and canoeing, and camping and travel. I have spent time in every state, 73 countries, and on all the continents. Over the years I have taught for a semester or more in Lesotho, Kenya, China, Liberia, and Ghana. I have participated in or led Fulbright-Hays Travel Seminars in India, Pakistan, and Namibia, and have lectured or read papers in China, Korea, Slovenia, Slovakia, Germany, and Russia. Travel makes it possible to meet interesting persons, to make friends with people from different nations, and to experience the richness and diversity of cultures, geography, history, flora and fauna.

I am active in the Roseville Covenant church and work with the Evangelical Covenant Church of Kenya and churches in Liberia to develop projects and leadership training that further their mission in their communities.

Education

B.A. Wheaton College

M.A. Northwestern University

Ph.D. Northwestern University

Publications

Books:

Divine Providence: God’s Love and Human Freedom. Wipf and Stock, 2016. Adopting a view that we have limited freedom and that this is most consistent with divine sovereignty, the book combines philosophical analysis and theological reflection on God’s properties (goodness, power, and knowledge) and on his actions (with respect to suffering or evil, to miracles, and to petitionary prayer).

Epistemic Obligations: Truth, Individualism, and the Limits of Belief. Baylor University Press, 2012. This book explores the important question whether we have a right to believe whatever we want, or whether we have an obligation to believe what is true.

On Behalf Of God: A Christian Ethic For Biology. William B. Eerdmans, 1995 (Co-author).

Reason and Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford University Press, 1991, 2nd ed. 1998; 3rd ed. 2003; 4th ed. 2009; 5th ed. 2013. (Co-author). As a companion to the Selected Readings, this widely used secondary source presents and explains key ideas in the philosophy of religion.

The Law of Karma: A Philosophical Study. The Macmillan Press Ltd. and University of Hawaii Press, 1990.

Evil and a Good God. Fordham University Press, 1982.

Is Man the Phoenix? A Study of Immortality. William B. Eerdmans, 1978; reprinted by University Press of America, 1983.